This is a photo of the cabin in Harbor Springs where I wrote most of Rules.  It belongs to my friends Pete & Laura.  Hi, Pete & Laura!  People are constantly lending me rooms where I can write things.  My friend Ben lent me a room in his house so I could write this.  I am trying to see, while there are only 7 of you looking, if I can post photos. I am also trying to see how many links I can work into small observations.

Megan The Publicist, the driving force behind the not-blog, has set up a facebook fan page for Rules. (Hi, Megan!) 

Howard Junker won’t be my friend on Facebook, though we are friends in real life.  Howard doesn’t like the looks of my Facebook friends.  He thinks I’m in the wrong Facebook crowd, so Howard will only hang with me outside of school.  It has taken several months to get over my hurt feelings on this matter, but I like Howard so much that I accept being shunned on Facebook.  After all, Howard is still a genius.

Facebook makes me feel bad on all sorts of levels.  My friend Sara says, “I have to watch my ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend poking each other and licking each other and hugging each other?!  I don’t want to see their foreplay.” 

A few years ago, when I was bartending in New York, a friend brought in Jamie Waterston, the older boy I had a crush on in high school.  Nothing makes you feel 14 again like seeing the high school crush you haven’t seen since you were a depressed anorexic, and having him look exactly the same but more handsome, and you feeling all sticky from the booze you’ve spilled all over yourself behind the bar.  Nothing makes you feel quite like that except Facebook, where all the dormant teenage insecurities come vibrantly to life (as when Howard emails you independently to tell you that while he likes you a lot, he’s not going to be seen with you and your friends in the halls).

This is not a blog entry, by the way.  These observations were just a vehicle to link to that Facebook fan page Megan put up, a fan page that makes me feel sort-of uncomfortable on many different levels.  But join it anyway so I don’t feel worse, please.

How to Perfect a Cliché

Eat your breakfast at Café de Flore. Bring your expensive Italian notebook. Order oefs coque with the little toast soldiers. Drink two café noir. Put your copy of Julio Cortazar’s “Hopscotch” on the table in front of you. It’s a hardcover from 1966. You bought it online before you left London and carried it with you on the Eurostar — that is how much you love “Hopscotch.” Do not read it, though. Write a short story on your computer instead, until the battery dies.

Read the rest on FiveChapters.com: http://www.fivechapters.com/how_to_perfect_a_cliche/index_full.php